Lehava and Jailer:
I would hope you understand that the issue is not gemaine to OMNI in the way you might think. The whole issue starts with those members - and there are many of them - who do not subscribe to the same options you put forth, that is, Ignore User, and don't read a thread that is outside of your interest and participation in a topic.

You ask, "how is that hurting you?" In reality, it hurts FlyerTalk quite a bit in the amount of time and effort it takes to investigate each and every Report Bad Post in OMNI. As with the prior question, I did do some research and don't mind sharing that with you.

In 2005, despite the forum being closed for a short time, I received 329 Report Bad Posts just for OMNI. In 2006, that statistic rose to 437 Report Bad Posts. Now, only 23% of the time did i take some action, not always on the board, usually behind the scenes with individual members. But in pretty much 90% of those 437 reports last year, i had to go into OMNI and read through many times a very long thread to get the gist of what was going on within that thread, who might have made the key post that led it to being off-topic. The average time of doing so - about 5 minutes. So 5 minutes times 437 instances. I think that is over 36 hours devoted to that task. Over a year that really isn't that much, but it certainly is time I'd have liked to devote to more pleasant things that putting on my striped shirt. Granted, most of the time I don't take any action, preferring to let things sort themselves out. But that does not mean it is ignored. The biggest challenge is that what one person seems as a violation as a TOS or a name calling or other, may not be seen that way by myself or others. Then beyond the RBP we have to dialogue of why or why not we see it differently. That is even more time consuming than anything. And as for what does it hurt? Well, what about members who feel insulted and then fight back rather than use the system. Doesn't it hurt them? They may earn a suspension or other action. And what about the times when threads turn racist (an individual member posts something perceived as racist) and the damage done to FlyerTalk as it may or may not reflect on FlyerTalk. True, we did not make that statement, but it is on FlyerTalk. And for times like that, well, the only way to get better at that is to patrol OMNI 24/7 in real time rather than the reactive method we use now. Who's going to fund that? Are you prepared to pony up the kind of money it would take to man patrols 24/7? Likely not. So the current system works fairly well. We allow dialogue to generally serve its own needs and to allow a fairly liberal playing field, choosing only to interject when members play the racist card, interject politics into threads that are normal Q/A about consumer advice, etc. or think that they will truly be able to convert a Republican into a Democrat or a Democrat into a Republican and all in the name of something that will never be.

The idea of limiting posts on OMNI, is not for the general member that does enjoy and contributes to a normal conversation. It is for those who are often the subject of the 437 RBP. BTW, the 437 was a 32% increase from the year before.

Question is, would you devote nearly a week of work to a single forum on FlyerTalk, not for the purpose of contributing and enjoying, but just to read and referee? I do it because i am committed to FlyerTalk, but the bummer is that it hurts me a lot because it takes all the time that i would have liked to use personally to enjoy FlyerTalk - just like you do.

Anyway, i hope this helps understand it is less about OMNI as a vibrant forum on FlyerTalk and more about some of its members, and using the Ignore User button does not seem to be an option.

Snipped for continuity....

Randy,

I simply don't understand why you don't treat OMNI like any other forum and appoint moderators instead of leaving the work to yourself and senior moderators. I am certain there are some people who post on OMNI regularly who behave themselves and don't have bad post reports sent about them who you could count on to do this work for you.

As someone who loves FT and follows about 5 travel forums and having received a lot of good information from them, limiting OMNI is not going to improve FT, in my view.

(And, an aside....I see just as much vile rhetoric thrown around in Travel Safety and Security, but that's never seen as a problem. And that board's visible and available to all.)

I can't say it better than Lehava has, although I did say the exact same thing (less eloquently) when I was running for TalkBoard. I came for the miles and point and stay for the people and community. If you limit or eliminate OMNI or any of the other non-point/mile forums, many good people are going to come by less and less.

And is that a good thing? Suppose a person posts 90% to OMNI. But that 1 post in 10 is to an airline forum and that person steps up and helps a member with something. Eliminating the 9 posts in 10 may mean that person doesn't come by as often -- maybe once a week or month to see what's new in their favorite programs, instead of daily.

If it's the traffic that's the problem, well, I can appreciate that from a technical perspective. But if it's the reputation of FT and the amount of work placed on the HOM, well, it's already a closed board that requires time and posts to view, so the only people seeing and posting in OMNI are already FT members. And the work can always be delegated.

--Rich

Interesting info. I didn't realize that OMNI had required so much more work in the timeframe since I've no longer been actively posting there (i.e., stopped around two years ago) than when I used to frequent it.

Moderating OMNI has been done before by volunteer moderators, but it resulted in at least some moderator churn IIRC.

More facts. Actually, we have had moderators in OMNI in the past and have burned them all out. The abuse a moderator gets from OMNI as well as the time it takes really takes it's toll. After seeing the burnout rate there, I opted to try and do it myself because i simply have too much respect for those members that were donating an escalating amount of their personal lives to this effort. I didn't view it as fair to them. Again, this points out just how different OMNI may look to some of our members who only see it through their eyes, not the eyes of others. As GU notes above, most if not all members really have no idea of what it takes to make FlyerTalk work the way it does. Hopefully by hearing of some of these efforts, a few members will appreciate a bit more what they have.

I hope this topic does not alarm anyone. We have no plans to change OMNI overnight and may not likely make any changes at all. But it is nice to "take the temperature" once and a while.

Randy, I do appreciate the information you shared. But please dont find it offensive that I find statistics in general to be very manipulatable, particularly when given on their own. You say that the NUMBER of BPR's went up based on the number from the year before, but how does that match with the total number of posts in the forum for the year change, did the percentage of BPR's out of the whole posts really change that much????? Also you didnt compare the number/percentage of bad post reports there to those in the travel forums either.

You dont need to go find all these numbers, I know you are busy, but my point is you can make anything look bad by showing numbers in isolation (first thing they teach you in any statistics class). 437 bad posts could be a bad thing if you only have 500 posts, but if you have 500,000,000 it is a real great percentage!!!!

And as RichMSN points out, my guess is that if we looked at percentages the security forum draws as high if not higher a percentage. To which I am sure the answer will be but that is travel based, but because it is travel based and isnt supposed to be as controversial as OMNI the fact of out badly behaved that forum is should, in my opinion, be a lot more worrysome to the HOM!!!!!! I know personally I find visiting that forum a lot more offensive than I do OMNI.

Another thought, if there are a massive number of BPR's is someone analyzing who is instigating the reports, is the problem the reporters trying to get people in trouble vs the posts?

Finally, I also agree that more moderators should be used in OMNI, with the understanding they are rotated out and do short "tours of duty" since it is a tough forum. If each moderator spent a month a year at the most on that forum it would be a lot less hard to take. Almost like a dr in a hospital having to do their monthly on call at the ER, it stinks, they all hate it, but they do it once a year as part of their job. And yes I know the, they are volunteers bit, but I was a volunteer chat room moderator on AOL and we all had to take our shot at the message boards even if we didnt enjoy it.

As I have said already, I know OMNI is not like petting puppies and takes work, but I think it has a lot more value to the FT community than it is given credit for, including by Randy!!!!

Excluding BPRs related to posts by those with fewer than 180 posts --particularly as those FTers with less than 180 posts don't actively post in OMNI -- what's the ratio of BPRs out of total postings in the travel forums vs. the ratio of BPRs out of total postings in OMNI? While such numbers (and more) would be interesting, even that isn't necessarily the best measure or matrix of measures to understand what transpires here.

In any event, that is, percentages and ratios might not say it all. In other words, I wouldn't be surprised if, with some notable exceptions, OMNI BPRs take more time to investigate and address than non-OMNI BPRs.

Figures available or not, OMNI has certainly eaten up a lot of moderator time and moderators --especially as some people (in OMNI and outside of OMNI) don't know how to have a clean discussion without engaging in personal attacks and/or engaging in discussions of FTers; that is some have trouble addressing the content in the posts in that particular thread and instead resort to a make-work program for moderators and others.

Ditto for the security forum!

Has there been as much moderator churn with Travel Safety & Security in the period between 2001 and today as there has been with OMNI?

Regardless, compared to OMNI, TS&S generally has more (or ought to have more) to do with travel.

Randy, thanks for your thoughtful replies, which put an operational spin on the issue.

Certainly, all the people posting on this thread are grateful for FT as a resource. That this frequent flyer treasure trove would morph into such a robust social network is something that even you might not have predicted; such is the nature of offspring. And I must admit, although I enjoy OMNI, I would not trade all (or even many of) the miles, trips and upgrades I have gleaned from FT to keep OMNI from the chopping block. Call me pragmatic.

Frivolity aside (i.e., Letters of Marque and Indulgences), I suspect all posters on this thread share your desire for a FT that is not so labor intensive that it becomes onerous for you and the moderators to manage.

You could build a higher wall around OMNI (100+ posts and be a paid subscriber) and then take a laissez-faire approach and let OMNI be moderator-free, allowing a free-for-all of ideas. I do appreciate, however, that you would hate to have your name associated with the bullying behavior and ethnic and discriminatory slurring that might ensue, so likely there would have to be some hard and fast rules whereby certain language gets someone kicked off OMNI, or even FT. Perhaps a search and destroy component of the software could be employed.

In a sense, OMNI is a loss-leader. Or, thinking about the bad old days of regulation, it’s like the unprofitable routes that airlines had to fly in order to have the right (sometimes monopolistic) to fly certain other more lucrative routes.

Not that you are under any obligation to provide the OMNI lounge, but as Lehava eloquently alluded, OMNI often knits the social fabric and keeps many members engaged who otherwise might have wandered elsewhere. And, honestly, I appreciate the diverse views that OMNI provides...FT is a very worldly and intellectual watering hole.

Putting a positive spin, it must be gratifying to you that so many people are willing to volunteer their time for FT's betterment and that we armchair philosophers are eager to weigh in regarding the best direction for your creation (even if you haven’t asked for any opinions).

I'm going to close this thread because there are other threads that also would like my thoughts. I think there's enough here for most and at least the original question was researched and answered.

Part of the reason to close the thread is that the thread has become OMNI itself. It seems that now i have to go back and qualify the stats for RBP for OMNi and do a statistic analysis, etc. I apologize, but really i think my time available to FlyerTalk is best spent on helping out the general membership of FlyerTalk. Something I enjoy and usually i don't have to get drawn into some analysis paralysis. Suffice it to say, there are some members in OMNI that will have some of their posting privileges curtailed because they fail to meet the "play nice with others" doctrine on FlyerTalk and elsewhere in the world. All other members, please continue to enjoy the casual community spirit of FlyerTalk – whatever the topic.